Road Trip: Curing our homesickness for Ireland without flying anywhere

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For those who came from away, the impact of the pandemic is significant. Immigrants, or those with family abroad, are having to cope with virtual hugs and kisses, not to mention missing the cultural re-energizing that comes from visiting your family.

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My wife and I have been dealing with that struggle. Though born in Canada, my wife grew up in Ireland, and that country’s still a major part of her culture. She always enjoyed long summer holidays in the Emerald Isle, and with her extended family in the Middle East (we have a very multicultural home).

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We planned a destination wedding on the Dead Sea that had to be cancelled due to COVID-19. We couldn’t go to our friends’ weddings in Dublin. We missed seeing our friends and getting an authentic piece of our culture to hold dear to our hearts.

As often as possible, we plan visits to see her family and friends in Ireland and elsewhere, but that can’t happen right now with pandemic restrictions. So to cheer up my homesick wife, I tried to find a bit of her home, right here in ours.

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You’ll be surprised what can be found throughout our country, and what the impact of so many years of immigration, refugees, and cultural tolerance has led to.

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Starting Closer to Home

My steed for the excursion was the 2021 Lexus NX 300, the company’s latest compact crossover. Our bright-blue transportation would be plush enough to make a long trip comfortable, and laden with the latest high-tech features to make it easy to find what we were looking for. First impressions were strong, and the car featured heated seats and a heated steering wheel, which made getting around in winter particularly cozy. Warmed up and eager to explore, we set out.

My first stop in Toronto was the simply-named Ireland Park. Right next to Billy Bishop Airport, and hidden behind the old Canadian Malting silo, Ireland Park is found at the foot of Bathurst Street, known as Éireann Quay. It’s easy to park by the airport, or along Bathurst, and walk your way to the secluded spot.

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As a part of the waterfront, the Park represents the arrival of so many Irish immigrants that fled their land during the Great Famine of 1845 to 1852. The park commemorates the 38,000 newcomers that arrived in Toronto, even though the city’s population at that time was just about 20,000.

The Park includes a reciprocal tribute to a set of statues, known as “Departure,” found on the Custom House Quays in Dublin. The piece in Ireland features several emaciated men and women plodding along the riverbank. The five bronze statues in Toronto exhibit the feelings of these Irish immigrants and their fates. A starved man, a pregnant woman holding her stomach, a wide-eyed child, a praying man, and a character with his arms skyward in praise, all represent the journey and feelings of those finding new prospects, as so many Canadian Immigrants do.

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Behind the statues, a cylinder of stacked glass is illuminated at night like a beacon, beckoning those in search of a better life. The beacon is next to an imposing black wall commemorating those who set out on the journey to Toronto, but did not survive. An estimated 1,100 people died en route, and the wall, built with limestone imported from Kilkenny, Ireland, has their names etched into it.

Despite being in downtown Toronto, there’s a calmness in the park. It’s a place where my wife and I, among others, can reflect. She reminds me of the lessons she was taught in school about the famine, about how it shaped the country and its people. She describes the sculptures in Dublin, showing me just how similar the set here in Toronto is. She bows her head in respect to the names of those who died in search of a better life here in Canada. So many emotions can come from this small but heavy place. It’s a small museum of Irish-Canadian relations, and how the two countries have been intertwined since the mid-1800s.

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Ireland Represented in Montreal, Too

Nearly 100,000 Irish immigrants arrived in Canada during the famine, landing in cities outside of Toronto as well. However, some who arrived in Quebec fell victim to a typhus outbreak and were buried in a mass grave in Windmill Point. The Irish immigrants who settled in the area helped build the Victoria Bridge, and those workers uncovered the mass grave. They decided to erect an inscribed stone, representing the impact of the famine and to never forget those who sought refuge in a better country.

The inscription reads, “To preserve from desecration the remains of 6000 immigrants who died of ship fever A.D.1847-8 this stone is erected by the workmen of Messrs. Peto, Brassey and Betts employed in the construction of the Victoria Bridge A.D.1859.” The impact this significant burst of Irish Immigrants had on our communities was huge and still felt today.

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The Corktown Connection

We hopped into the Lexus and took a short drive east in Toronto from Ireland Park, to the neighbourhood of Corktown. It was named in honour of immigrants who came primarily from County Cork, Ireland’s largest county. Our vehicle’s various cameras and sensors helped us navigate our way through the tight alleys of Old Town Toronto. The touchpad-oriented infotainment system proved a pain to use, but at least the navigation system had no problem finding what we were looking for.

Corktown is where you’ll find St. Paul’s Basilica, the first Roman Catholic Church in Toronto, and a place of worship for many of those newly-landed Canadians. You’ll also find the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, where many children from poor Irish families were educated. These two old, well-preserved, and important parts of our city’s heritage are examples of how Toronto was there for the immigrants who came to our streets in search of faith, housing, and education.

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Keep going east (although we didn’t) and you’ll end up in Ottawa, where Irish labourers helped build the Rideau Canal. These poor Irish workers built a series of shanties along the “Deep Cut” section of the canal, and it became known as Corktown (or Corkstown). Today, a bridge over the canal is named the Corktown Footbridge in honour of those Irish labourers.

Can You Find a More Authentic Irish Experience in Ontario?

To get an authentic Irish experience a bit closer to home, we jumped in the Lexus and set off in a northwest bearing to Listowel. Located in North Perth, the area was settled back in 1852, and named Listowel in 1856, after the Irish town of the same name in County Kerry.

The adaptive cruise control made the freeway sprint a simple affair. It’s not standard equipment, something I’d expect in a luxury vehicle, but our F-Sport-packaged vehicle was filled to the brim with niceties to make the trip stress-free. Maintaining its distance from other commuters was a breeze, and the model even featured a lane-keeping assist that wasn’t intrusive or overbearing.

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The vehicle sports a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, the first for Lexus back when it debuted in 2014. It packs a hardy 235 horsepower and 258 lb-ft of torque, more than enough to keep up with traffic on the 401, and pass transport trucks and tractors on the rural routes. I thought I’d be disappointed by the six-speed automatic, but it picked gears as needed, and delivered a decent 9.4 L/100 km, slightly better than the 9.7 for which it’s rated. A few more gears would have likely improved the efficiency, but possibly at the cost of smoothness.

Regions outside the Greater Toronto Area saw far more snow over the previous few days, and at -11 C, there were some icy patches to look out for. The AWD system in the Lexus doesn’t feature a snow-specific mode but does have a 4×4 lock to help in any low-speed, low-traction conditions.

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On our way to Listowel, we noticed many Ontario communities, towns and cities were named after places and people in Ireland. Dublin, Donegal, and Newry are familiar-sounding, but smaller regions carry the Irish names too. Still, they lack that Irish heritage that Listowel has. While many say they’re “Irish for a Day” on St. Patrick’s Day, Listowel extends it for two weeks during its annual Paddyfest .

The tradition began back in 1977, to honour the city’s significant population with Irish ancestry and roots. The town comes alive with concerts, dances, trivia nights, comedy shows, and sports tournaments, plus a parade. When I described it to my wife, she said it sounded like more effort than the Irish in Ireland typically make for the day!

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Culture and Tradition at the Heart of Listowel

Listowel is also the birthplace of Jared Keeso, better known on Letterkenny as Wayne Shoresy . The show is filmed in Sudbury, Ontario, but Keeso’s hometown apparently serves as the inspiration for the quirky, award-winning comedy.

Beyond the Irish influences in Listowel, we find plenty of culture. Every year, local artists are showcased as part of the Perth Autumn Studio Tour , which went virtual for 2020. And while the Listowel Agricultural Fair had to be cancelled, it has 163 years of history behind it and is hoping to celebrate two years’ worth of fairs during one weekend this coming July.

While Paddyfest also had to change due to COVID-19, it’s the soul of Ireland that I was after. Seeing the sobering history lesson in Toronto’s Ireland Park was an important link to the hardy country. Walking through Corktown helped paint the picture of Irish immigrants in their new home. And that road trip to the inspired town of Listowel, and listening to its festivities and enduring spirit, helped seal the deal.

With a few short road trips and a quick look through the history books, this year’s trip to Ireland was conducted right here at home. Canada is a land of immigrants, and we’re lucky to have so many bring their culture, traditions and experiences along with them. It may be a consolation prize to an exotic trip, but I’m eager to keep exploring these authentic parts of the world that are right here in my own backyard.